“You’re kidding.”
“Not even close,” he said, pulling his phone out and typing in the code for the security system.
“See this?” He held it so she could see the green lights indicating alarm systems in every window and door of the house. “It’s fairly simplistic but effective. The alarm is tripped when the circuit is broken. If that happens, my phone will buzz, one of these green lights will be red, and—”
“One of the kids will be in trouble.”
“Lockdown for a week. No electronics. No television. No hanging with friends.”
“You explained the rules to all of them?”
“In detail. Several times. I needed to make sure they understand. There’s not much worse than being punished for breaking a rule you didn’t know existed.”
“Did that happen often when you were a kid?” she asked as she led the way across the field. She’d left an exterior light on at the rancher, and he could see it glowing through the darkness, guiding the way back.
“When I was a kid, we got punished for breathing too loudly,” he said, keeping his tone light and his body relaxed.
He didn’t talk about his past.
Not to his brothers or friends or, even, his lovers.
“I’m sorry, Porter. No kid should grow up that way.”
“That’s why my brothers and I are determined to make this situation as easy as we can for the kids.”
“But it’s getting old, right? And tiring? You’ve made lives for yourselves and are having to put them on hold while you figure out what’s best for six kids you barely know?”
“If you heard my conversation, you know that I think it’s time to start planning for a future that . . .” doesn’t have Sunday in it.
It’s what he wanted to say.
What he planned to say.
He couldn’t get the words out.
Saying them out loud would feel too much like quitting on his sister-in-law and his nieces and nephews. Too much like giving up hope.
Clementine nodded, unlocking her front door and opening it. “Words have a lot of power, Porter, and I’m glad you didn’t speak those.”
“Eventually, they’ll have to be said,” he responded, his voice gritty with emotions he wasn’t used to feeling. He lived his life the way he wanted, made his money playing protector to people who could afford his services.
He made friends.
He dated.
He enjoyed life.
But he kept his relationships light and his commitments lighter.
He knew how easy it was to hurt someone, and he didn’t ever want to be responsible for the kind of pain his father had caused.
“Maybe they’ll have to be said.” She touched his cheek, her fingers cool and rough from the work she’d been doing. “Maybe not. Let’s wait and see what time does.”
“Are you always this philosophical?”
“No one spends fifteen years with a man like my father without learning to talk like a philosopher.” She stepped into the house. “I guess I’ve put off the inevitable long enough. Time to face my demons.”
“Are they that bad?”
“Only when my house smells like cigarettes and cheap cologne,” she responded, her eyes tired, her face pale.
“It still smells like that?”
“It did when I came in from the field. It was probably my imagination, though.”
“Want me to come in? Go through the house with you and make sure it’s empty?”
“It’s empty,” she said, offering a tired smile. “And it’s late. Go home and get some sleep. Church tomorrow should be . . . fun.”
“You say that like I should be afraid.”
“Not afraid. Just . . . prepared. Is Rosie going with you?”
“I hope to God she is,” he muttered, imagining himself dragging six kids through the doors of God’s house. All of them dressed like paupers and screaming at the top of their lungs.
“Do you want an extra pair of hands?”
“Are you offering?”
“Only if there are no other options.”
“You’re not big on church?”
“I’m not big on being in the same building as a bunch of people who think I’m on par spiritually with serial killers.” She smiled. “But, if you find out Rosie won’t be there, give me a call. I’ll sacrifice myself for the sake of your sanity.”
She closed the door before he could ask questions.
Which was fine.
He already knew the story.
He’d done a background check when he’d found out she was living on the farm, made some phone calls, talked to the local sheriff. He knew about the baby found outside the local chocolate shop and about Clementine’s role in the story. She’d harbored the young couple who’d given birth to and then abandoned the newborn. According to the sheriff, Clementine hadn’t known what the couple intended. After the baby had been found, she hadn’t had the heart to turn in the teenage mother. She hadn’t been charged with a crime, but her willingness to keep silent had probably turned a lot of people against her.
He waited until the lock clicked and the bolt slid home, and then he did a circuit of the house, making sure the windows were closed and locked, the curtains and shades shut. Her ex had seemed innocuous enough, but that meant just about nothing. He’d seen men who’d looked like Mr. Rogers pull guns.
The exterior was unremarkable. No sign of forced entry. No footprints near the windows, broken branches in the shrubbery near the back deck, no cut screens or jimmied locks. Nothing to indicate that Simeon had tried to gain entry to the house.
Still, Porter felt uneasy.
The house had been built in the sixties, and the windows and the doors were old, the locks easy to pop. If he’d wanted to, he could have made entry in thirty seconds flat.
He didn’t think Simeon was quite that skilled, but he’d call in a favor and get a friend in the LAPD to run a background check.
Just to be sure.
Because playing it safe with people who mattered was what he did best. And, after the day from hell he’d had, it was good to be reminded of that.
Chapter Four
She was losing her mind.
There was no other explanation for the fact that she’d smelled cigarettes and cologne every time she walked into the house for the past week.
Clementine scowled, tossing her keys onto the kitchen table and opening the window above the sink. Cold, damp air wafted in, carrying a hint of winter snow and spring rain.
To anyone else it wouldn’t have meant much.
To her, it heralded the beginning of planting season.
She’d spent countless hours in the fields tilling and prepping the soil. She’d fixed the tractor so many times, her hands ached from the effort of torquing screws and turning wrenches. She’d worked a week of twenty-hour days, doing the job of five people alone.
God, she was tired.
That had to be the reason her brain was playing tricks on her. And it had to be doing that, because there was no way Sim was still hanging around Benevolence.
Was there?
She frowned, staring out at the cobalt sky, her heart thumping uncomfortably in her chest. She needed to eat something. That might help, but she hadn’t had the time or the inclination to go to the store.
She grabbed the coffeepot, frowning at the grounds sitting in the bottom of it. She usually rinsed it out before she left the house in the morning.
“You really are losing it, Clem,” she muttered, digging through the cupboards, trying to find the last of the coffee.
She’d had enough for one more pot.
Hadn’t she?
Someone knocked on the door, and she jumped, reaching for a knife before she thought it through, heading into the living room, her heart still doing that crazy thud-thud-thud.
“Who is it?” she growled, looking through the peephole, expecting to see Sim or some boogeyman waiting to pounce.
“Porter,” was the
response. She could clearly see that it was. He’d stepped into the porch light, hands shoved into the pockets of his coat, a shadow of a beard on his chin.
“Hold on.” She slid the bolt, unlocked the door, and opened it.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, because aside from waving at him across the field or watching as he pulled down the driveway with one kid or another in the old red van, she hadn’t seen him since the previous Saturday.
“Maybe I should be the one asking that question.” He took the knife from her hand and set it on the coffee table. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing a cup of coffee and some food won’t fix,” she lied, because she wasn’t going to admit that she kept smelling Sim’s signature scent in the house.
“You’ve been working too hard, and if I hadn’t had six little hellions to deal with, I’d have been over here a couple of days ago telling you to stop.” He opened the coat closet and pulled out her wool duster coat. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“For food and coffee.”
“I’m too tired to move.”
“You don’t have to.” He draped the coat around her shoulders, pulling the heavy fall of her hair out from the collar. His hands seemed to linger for a moment longer than necessary, his fingers sliding through the thick strands, then brushing staticky pieces from her cheek.
“Sim never helped me with my coat,” she somehow managed to say. Out loud.
Damnit all.
Because she didn’t want to talk about Sim and his failures. She didn’t want to think about her willingness to accept less than what she’d longed for.
She didn’t want to meander down memory lane while Porter stared into her eyes.
“Forget I said that,” she said hurriedly.
But, of course, the words wouldn’t just go away. They stayed. Floating in the air. Lingering like the scent of nicotine or the feeling of a thousand regrets.
“We’ve already established Sim is an ass,” Porter responded gruffly. “Wait here. I’ll get my SUV and drive it over.”
He walked outside before she could tell him not to bother.
It would have been easy enough to follow him onto the porch, tell him that she really didn’t think going somewhere with him was a good idea. Because, sure, she was tired, but she also knew better than to tempt herself with chocolate, good wine, or sappy love stories.
She couldn’t resist any of them.
And, it seemed she couldn’t resist dreaming either. About all those silly things she’d thought she’d have with Sim. Companionship, love, forever. She couldn’t resist thinking about having her own sappy love story. One where the guy treated her like an equal but still helped her with her coat.
She could spend all day in the fields, all evening planting, all the hours that were left pulling or spinning fleece. Her mind never once went to love stories or forevers unless Porter was around.
He was a vice she couldn’t afford, a habit she didn’t intend to foster. She knew better than to tempt herself.
But, there she was—standing in her coat, waiting for him to return.
She carried the knife into the kitchen, closed the window and made another quick search of the cupboards, looking for the coffee she was sure she still had.
She was searching the pantry when the doorbell rang.
“Come in!” she shouted.
Seconds later, Porter entered the kitchen, looking just as wonderful as he had five minutes prior.
God!
She really needed to stop noticing.
“Looking for something?” he asked, the scent of pine needles and winter fires drifting on the air as he approached. Two of her favorite aromas, because there was nothing quite as wonderful as sitting under the stars, a bonfire going and a book in hand, firelight playing over the pages.
“Just coffee. I was sure I had some left,” she responded, pretending she hadn’t noticed how good he looked, how wonderful he smelled, or how happy she felt to see him.
She shouldn’t be happy.
She should be indifferent. That’s where safety lay.
Hadn’t she just reminded herself how important it was to not allow herself to be tempted by things she couldn’t resist?
Of course, she had!
So, indifference needed to be her reaction.
“Did you check the trash?”
“Why would I keep it there?”
“Not keep it, Clementine. Toss away the empty package. If you finished off what was left, that’s what you’d have done.”
“Right. I hadn’t thought about that.” Because she’d been certain she hadn’t emptied the bag. She opened the trash can lid, and there it was. The empty package.
“I guess I did use the last of it,” she said, trying desperately to remember doing it.
“We can pick up more while we’re out.”
“About that.” She turned to face him, realized he’d moved close. Really close. So close she could have stepped an inch closer and been in his arms.
“What?”
“Us going out. Together. It’s probably not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because . . .” She wracked her brain and couldn’t think of a thing.
“Look, if you’re worried about what people are going to think, don’t.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“Then what are you worried about?”
“Just . . . forgetting that I’m only here for a little while and that you’re only here to help with your nieces and nephews.”
“Why do we need to remember? Can’t we just enjoy a nice dinner, a quiet walk? No screaming kids or breaking tractors? No meetings at the school or panicked trips to urgent care?”
“Urgent care? Is someone sick?”
“Moisey sliced her finger on a tin can. No stitches necessary. Just a few dabs of glue and a pretty pink bandage. Three hours and many tears later, and she’s settled into the easy chair, watching movies with the rest of the gang. Rosie has her sister, Peg, over for the night, and they thought it would be good for me to get out for a while. Apparently, hovering over the kids and questioning every move they make isn’t going to keep them safe.”
“So you’ve been banished,” she said, and he smiled sheepishly.
“I wasn’t going to put that name to it, but . . . yeah.”
“Rosie and Peg are right, you know,” she said, grabbing her purse and hitching it over her shoulder, because she needed to avoid temptation, but she couldn’t make herself refuse his request. “It’s impossible to keep bad things from happening.”
“True, but we can lower the risk by taking precautions.”
“What kind of precautions were you planning to take? Because from what I’ve seen of the farmhouse, it’s pretty kid safe. Sunday was big on making sure of that.”
“My plan,” he said as they stepped outside, “was to cover the kids in Kevlar and bubble wrap and forbid them from leaving the house. Unfortunately, that would require homeschooling, and I’m not sure any of us would survive it.”
“Kevlar and bubble wrap?” She laughed, the cold air and deep blue sky filling her with the kind of pleasure she hadn’t felt in a long time.
Or, maybe, it was the company that was doing that.
Careful, her mind whispered.
Her fickle heart cheered enthusiastically.
“Hey, I’m not saying I would have followed through on the plan. I was just thinking out loud while I was unsticking Milo’s hands. He superglued them together while he was building a model. Rosie called for reinforcements right around the time I mentioned Kevlar. Since Peg lives in town, it didn’t take her long to arrive. Next thing I knew, I was being shipped out for some fresh air and thinking time.”
“Is that what they said?” she asked, still laughing, her heart thudding happily while her mind screamed that she had better watch what she was doing, because Porter was a likeable guy. And likeable was a whole hell of a lot more dangerous than s
exy.
Of course, he was sexy, too. Damn him. Handsome. Smart.
And, leaning toward her, those silvery eyes the color of moonlight on a frozen lake.
“You should laugh more often, Clementine,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers. Gently. Sweetly. Asking not one thing of her. Just giving. A benediction. A whisper of things that might be.
She didn’t speak when he pulled away.
She couldn’t, because all the words she’d collected over the years, all the stories, the myths and legends and lore, none of them were as right as the silence that filled the space between.
He opened the door of a dark SUV, helped her into the passenger seat, and kissed her one more time. Just as gently. Just as sweetly.
“What was that for?” she asked.
“You,” he said as he closed the door.
Just that.
You.
As if one simple word could explain everything.
* * *
Kissing her had probably been a mistake.
Probably?
Definitely. Absolutely. For sure.
It had been, but Porter couldn’t make himself regret it. Not as he drove to the diner. Not as they walked through the nearly empty restaurant, took their seats, ordered food, and ate it. Not for one minute of the time they spent together.
And now . . .
Now, as they walked along Main Street, passing dark, silent shops and empty parking lots, all he could do was think about repeating it.
Again and again and again.
It was her smile. The easy way her lips curved when she was amused. Her unrestrained laughter. Her unselfconscious pleasure in the starry sky and the chilly spring breeze.
Or maybe it was the curly mass of hair that fell loose almost to her waist. The unconscious sway of her hips as she moved.
She was beautiful, and she didn’t know it, and maybe that was it most of all. The thing that made him want to take her in his arms and prove just how desirable she was.
“This is a pretty little town,” she said as they walked past Chocolate Haven, its picture windows displaying beautiful white boxes wrapped in colorful ribbons. “I didn’t notice when I was here before.”
“You were probably distracted,” he suggested, and she shrugged.
“Maybe. Sim and I were trying to get his business up and running. That required a lot of time and energy.”
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